Word as a photo blogging tool

A prior post here provided a quick demonstration of a blog post using Office 2013 Word Preview. Here is a link to that post: Photo blogging with Word 2013.

The post asked “Does Word 2013 offer any interesting features to blogging?” The answer is “yes”, however, “interesting” is not necessarily good. Here is what that post looks like in Word:

There are three items that in the post are images. Let me take them up one at a time, but first some observations about Word as a blogging tool.

Word does not download or otherwise utilize the blog theme settings. Thus there is no WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) as there is in Windows Live Writer. In composing the post you are flying blind as far as appearance is concerned. Neither the blog width and background, nor the blog’s fonts and sizes are used in the Word manuscript.

Word does download the WordPress categories, however only when first registered. The categories are not updated when you start a new post as they are in Live Writer. There is no provision for tagging, either the WordPress tags or external post tags such as Technorati.

Word permits publishing as a draft in addition to publishing immediately, however there is no provision for setting the post date or time. Word is no Live Writer.

Inserting and managing photos

The photo of the sailing ship rigging was inserted from my local computer. Word offers some nice insert features:

Pictures can be inserted from the local machine and there is an “Online Pictures” command.

The Online Pictures insert dialog is interesting and impressive: Clip Art can be imported as can material from a Bing search.

The next two options are particularly interesting: Bringing in photos from Flickr or from your SkyDrive.

Using your Flickr photos is beautifully implemented. The next dialog shows all sets and then you can select individual photos.

Inserting material form your SkyDrive is similarly well done. Not just the root photo albums, but all folders and sub-folders are accessed.

Any image brought in can be manipulated with the familiar Word “Picture Tools”. This includes sizing, rotation, 3-D rotation, exposure correction, shadow effects, artistic effects … the whole gamut of the very powerful Word tool set. This also includes setting the picture behind the text. You can see in the first illustration that I used a variety of these options on the photo. Unfortunately, not everything shows up in the blog as it does in Word.

Word creates a new image using the various settings and effects. For the rigging image it uploaded just one image to the WordPress Media Library. Here is a small view of the uploaded image with a frame added to show you the full area that was uploaded as a picture.

The uploaded image, with all its white space, was 811 pixels wide and 1328 pixels tall. Much wider than my blog.

If Word made an attempt to set the photo behind the text, it was not apparent from the HTML code as shown in my WordPress dashboard. WordPress does strip out “illegal” code, so I can’t say anything about this for sure, but the blog post shows the image as an inline feature.

Some nice features there, but Word is no competition to Live Writer – not by a longshot.

Shapes and “SmartArt”

Word permits shapes, “SmartArt” and charts in a blog post manuscript just as it does in normal documents. A PNG image file is created and uploaded. I positioned the smiley face to the right margin. You can see how pathetic this looks in Word. At least this looks better in the post than in the manuscript.

“WordArt”

Another feature from Word is “WordArt”. Selected, highlighted, text can be dressed up in a variety of outlines, fills and more. This too results in a PNG image being generated and uploaded. The resulting reproduction in the post is definitely sub-standard in quality.

The blogging feature in Word 2013 (Preview) is pretty much as it was in earlier editions of Word – just a tacked on feature with no serious attempt at providing a professional level blogging tool.

Word has been the pre-eminent word processing tool because of its powerful features, meticulous attention to detail, and ease of use. This cannot be said for the blogging feature. It can be said of Windows Live Writer – a superb application, unmatched by anything from any source. If the Word blog feature would just launch Windows Live Writer it would be a thoroughly professional implementation.

14 Responses to Photo blogging with Word 2013 – Part 2

Excellent post Ludwig and not entirely unexpected either. There is no way can a fully fledged Word Processor such as Word compete with a dedicated Blogging Editor such as Live Writer. Writer has been tailor made to fully sync with you blog, no matter what theme or template you use, and it does so easily and works with practically all blogging platforms. The problem is that its never been ‘advertised’ or shouted from the rooftops by MS, therefore there are many bloggers who simply don’t know of its existence. We need to spread the word! Keep up the good work Ludwig.

Thank you T.G.
How can we get the word out to the blogging community that Windows Live Writer is the easiest and best tool? Everyone I know who has started to use WLW is enthusiastic and more active now.

Get each and every one to spread the word. Also its not a bad idea to place at the bottom of each post you do on all of your blogs a short sentence such as
This blog has been created and edited using Windows Live Writer (could include a Hyperlink here as well so that readers can click and be taken to the Writer download page.) Just a suggestion Ludwig.

Great idea T.G.! See the bottom of this post for my implementation of your suggestion. Anybody reading this is welcome to download the image I use for their own use. If you need a hand, drop me a line (see the About page for a message link).

Oh, another thought – I trust that everyone is using the “send a frown” tool in Word 2013 to send feedback to Microsoft that they should either keep Windows Live Writer or improve Word so that it is clearly the superior tool…

Agreed Geoff and a very good idea. I haven’t a clue how to include any photos/pictures to fully put Word through its paces, and actually, I can’t be bothered. I see no reason why anyone in their right mind would contemplate using Word when there’s Writer available. Trouble is, users simply don’t know of its existence….

Thank you Geoff, I do hope all our friends and fellow bloggers will follow your suggestion to send a Frown – or a Smile – to Microsoft. It works – I heard back on my first Smile, it included a frowny point, within a day form the developer. They care, they respond, they take action.
When sending a feedback, keep in mind that it includes a screenshot of your screen – this allows you to send a good amount of visual information along. Use it – it will help us all!

Ludwig and Technogran, good article and suggestion to post a short sentence at the end of a blog post citing Live Writer as the blog post SW used. And, I will do so once back home at my HP desktop where Inuse it to create posts. But on this family road trip, I am using a MacBook and LW is not even available for Mac (sadly) so Mars Edit is my blogging tool for awhile as its for Mac.
Ludwig, I have no plans to upgrade to Word 2013 but appreciated the in-depth review of its use or not as a blogging tool.

Hi Technogran, unfortunately MarsEdit is not good as LW but, at least for me, it has been the only useful off-line blogging SW, and you are SO right in saying Mac users want LW available for Mac. I did a lot of online research before buying MarsEdit…that’s right it’s NOT free like LW and cost $40. I am constantly making comparisons to LW which I use on my HP desktop. Good news is that the ME developer does respond to questions and is working to improve the SW.

Which just goes to prove how good a job LW does. Its unique and it has always irked me that Microsoft don’t seem to realise what a good program they have nor how Mac users would give their right arms for it! That’s what makes it such a shame IF they are simply going to let it die! We must all fight for Writer to continue to be updated, and to be made into a Metro app if that’s the way that they are insisting on going.

And even though I am trying to work with MarsEdit on the MacBook and the program developer responds to email questions promptly, it still doesn’t begin to compare with LW. Once back home I plan to include the tag line that Ludwig suggested to all blog posts done on my PC using LW. Maybe if Microsoft vacates LW, which I surely hope NOT, another SW maker will adopt it.

That is exactly what we all hope Beatrice, that someone else takes it over. My friend Scott who writes plug ins for Writer has asked the same thing. that if MS don’t want to continue with Writer that they allow others to continue working on it as an independent program.